The talented Tina Turner once asked lyrically, what's love got to do with it? She even went on to add that love is only a second hand emotion. Poor Tina, so confused and so wrong. Maybe she should listen to the Beatles when they sung, all you need is love, love, love is all you need. They got it right!
So let's help Tina Turner out a bit; what's love got to do with it you ask. The answer is everything!
God is love, and as people of faith we are called to love as God loves!
St. John, known as the beloved Apostle and the Apostle of Love, gives us today both our 2nd reading and our Gospel. In these two readings we hear the word love some 17 times; I think Jesus is trying to tell us something. He also uses another word 5 times, remain, as in remain in my love.
When Jesus tells us to remain in his love He is also telling us to love as He loves. And He puts this in the form of a commandment; a commandment, not a holy idea or suggestion. Love one another as I have loved you! Jesus loves unconditionally, Jesus loves fully, totally, laying down his life for us. Jesus loves us that He gave us his body, first on the Cross, a bloody sacrifice for us, and now on the altar, in the Eucharist, in an in-bloody manner, so we can eat his body and drink his blood and have life in us.
So how should our love look, if we remain in his love and love as he loved? Sometimes we easily declare that we love those most familiar to us, closest to us; we say we love our parents, our siblings, our family and our friends. I acknowledge the word sometimes because I do know that this is not always so for everyone. But generally, we love those most easy to love. But Jesus calls us to love everyone, and not as the world loves but as He loves.
And we must push our love beyond cultural or worldly examples. Is it enough to just be kind, is it enough to just not offend, is it enough to go along to get along? No, our love must be a love that gets the loved all the way to Heaven!
Let's examine two Sacraments and something called the Spiritual Works of Mercy. In Matrimony and Holy Orders, these Sacraments are ordered to the good of the other, not the good of self alone. Therefore, these two Sacraments are called Sacraments of Service. In Matrimony the job of the husband is to love his wife to heaven, to help her on the journey and the same of the wife, to love her husband all the way to heaven. In Holy Orders a Priest, especially if one be a Pastor, is to love his flock and help them in this life yes, but also to get to Heaven. It is a beautiful love!
St. John reminds us that if we try and short cut love, by saying we love God but not really loving others, we are liars. Blunt, direct, truthful, and spoken in love, the love that helps us get to Heaven.
So yes, we love our dearest family and friends, we love the ones among our family most difficult, and we love our enemy, we love those who may hate us, we love those who do not even know us, we love those who do not look like us, we love those who do not worship as we worship, we love the lovable and the not so lovable. And remember, love them all the way to Heaven.
Ask yourself this question; if we could ask Jesus who should I not love, what do you think He would say.
So we want to help love others all the way to Heaven, then learn the Spiritual works of Mercy:
Counsel the doubtful - orient your counsel as Christ would counsel
Instruct the ignorant - how can it be love if we allow the other to persist in ignorance of faith?
Admonish the sinner - remember first, we are sinners too, but admonish humbly and sincerely
Comfort the sorrowful - be the gift of presence and listening
Forgive injuries
Bear wrongs patiently - never grow bitter
Pray for the living and the dead - assume nothing
I went to prison yesterday for an all day retreat with 154 men. For seven hours, we preached love; a tough subject in a large all-male prison. At one point we asked the men to describe love using only the letters of the word love, L-O-V-E. The answers were spot on, and offered verbally in front of one another; words like limitless, overflowing, virtuous, everlasting!
Wanna tell me what love's got to do with it; simply, it is everything!!!
God is Love and we must love one another!
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